Chapter 22
***Cass***
Ihid in my office the next day and wore a baseball hat when I had to run out to grab lunch.
I’d considered staying home and hiding until my face didn’t look so horrible but I needed all the experience I could get doing massage therapy on the team.
If the odds were already stacked against me, I needed to make sure I had real world work behind my name.
I didn’t check the schedule to see who I was going to have on my table next so that I didn’t have time to fret if it was someone I disliked so I was surprised when I looked up and saw Weston letting himself into my space.
He shut the door behind him and leaned against it.
With a day to recover he looked as good as new.
He smelled good, too. All signs of the drunken dickhead were gone.
Even the typical scowl was gone from his face.
He slowly lifted his eyes to mine and I watched him flinch. My face was even worse, with multi-colored bruises covering most of it. He seemed like he was on the verge of speaking but I didn’t want to hear anything from him.
“Go ahead and undress. Face down on the table when you’re finished.
” I turned my back to him and pulled up his chart in the PT program the school used.
I already knew I’d be focusing on his back for therapy but when I opened the chart and scanned the notes I scowled and turned back around to face him.
“Why does your chart show that you haven’t had anyone working on your back in months? ”
He worked his joggers down his legs and then stretched out across the massage table in just his boxer briefs. The black material boasted an expensive label that made me want to thump him in the back of the head even harder. Who paid that much for underwear? Idiot.
“I don’t want to start this out with a lie, Cassidy. Don’t ask me that.”
I stretched a sheet across his lower half and sighed. “I’m not going to waste my time rubbing your calf muscles when you need your back worked on, Weston.”
He gripped the massage table and swore. “Fine.”
I did my best to be a professional while staring down at his wide shoulders and lean waist. Even when I thought I hated him it was impossible not to find him attractive. When he was sober and smelled good, anyway.
I skipped the normal questions I’d ask and worked oil into my hands. “I don’t need to go over the normal intake procedure because I’m familiar with your injury and have worked on you before. Kind of.”
He tensed even more than he already was the moment I touched him. “You’re familiar with my injury?”
I found it easier to focus on what I was saying instead of the feel of his warm skin under my hands.
“When everyone said that USC caused the injuries I looked into it. I studied the film and then I did a little digging and found more information about your back. I left out your name for obvious reasons but I did a project on the injury for a class last year.”
He went up on his elbows to look at me. “You’re serious?”
I tapped his shoulder until he went flat again. “Yeah. I was interested. Especially when you didn’t choose surgery. Getting to work on your back is actually pretty exciting. It’s just too bad it’s still connected to you.”
He grunted. “Yep.”
I worked in silence for a while, learning the true layout of his back without anything else distracting me.
I mapped his muscles with my fingertips and noted every place I found that was holding more tension than it should’ve been.
As much as I hated to admit it, I really was in nerd heaven getting to work on him.
It was even better if I pretended he was someone else.
“You know all the other massage therapists who work for the team are men in their fifties and sixties?”
I made a noise of acknowledgment and grazed the top of his ass while feeling out his sacrum. From there I found the piriformis muscle and clicked my tongue at the tension I could feel there. “You’re having sciatica pain, aren’t you?”
“Cassidy.”
I rolled my eyes and worked at the muscle.
“The other massage therapists probably followed the normal track to their licenses. I knew what I wanted to do when I was still a kid. I started working with the physical therapists at USC before I could ride a bike without training wheels. I wasn’t much help back then, of course, but Coach Carrington took Jax to work with him and I just tagged along so he let me stalk the team physicians.
He wasn’t the coach back then, of course.
I did everything I could but I still had to wait to get my massage therapist license until I turned eighteen.
Freshman year was a bitch. I took gen eds at USC while taking 500 course hours for my license and cheering. I don’t think I slept at all.”
Not that it mattered to me then. I’d been miserable. Cole had gone from high school to college star playing on all the big sports channels. He suddenly had a never-ending buffet of girls and women waiting for him.
“Impressive.”
“Now, answer my question.” I pressed a little harder on his muscle and heard his answering groan. “This is your piriformis muscle and it feels inflamed, which means it’s probably playing footsie with your sciatic nerve. Yes?”
“Fuck.” His hands were white-knuckling the table. “Yeah. It fucking hurts.”
I worked on the muscle until I felt some of the tension release.
Smiling, I stuck my tongue out at the back of his head.
I could tell he felt a little better already by the way his big body relaxed under my hands.
It was a heady feeling, being able to help someone.
Especially someone who used their body for a living and needed it to work for them.
That was the reason I loved doing massage therapy while working towards becoming a physical therapist.
With some of the pain eased Weston started to really enjoy the massage and every few minutes he’d let out a moan or a sigh that sent a wave of awareness through me.
I suddenly wasn’t feeling muscle or tension anymore but instead I was feeling hard muscle under hot skin.
No matter how much I tried to remain professional, his noises were killing me.
Without thinking, I stepped back and told him to roll over.
I’d usually finish a massage with a little work on the arms and hands, just a finishing touch to help relax my patient before they went back to work.
I didn’t need his chest exposed, though.
Not when I was already clinging to my anger at him with the very tips of my fingers.
He rolled over and I adjusted the sheet to cover him again, just to have it stubbornly refuse to go down. It took me another two seconds to realize why the sheet wouldn’t flatten. I nearly choked on my shock at seeing his erection just as he started apologizing.